After retiring as President and Chief Operating Officer at AT&T, William Ellinghaus served as the Chairman of the WNET Board of Trustees from 1984 to 1990. During that time, he was also the Executive Vice-Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. During his time at WNET, the decision to hire Bill Baker as President was made and programming such as The Brain, American Masters, Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth, and Art of the Western World were created. When he took on the role as Chairman of WNET, his friends looked up to him because he “took the time to help one of the finest public television stations in the nation.”